Guy Debord sees the core of the spectacle as the annihilation of historical knowledge — in particular the destruction of the recent past. In its place there is the reign of a perpetual present. History, he writes, had always been the measure by which novelty was assessed, but whoever is in the business of selling novelty has an interest in destroying the means by which it could be judged. Thus there is a ceaseless appearance of the important, and almost immediately its annihilation and replacement: "That which the spectacle ceases to speak of for three days no longer exists.” Jonathan Crary [1]

Among the schemings, positionings, and other-regulatings irrupting this political season, land use, “land transfer” and public lands management are hotly debated. For example, as reported in Oregon mid-February (2017): “Four Republican lawmakers want to study the idea of transferring Oregon’s federal public lands to state control.” [2] Thus far in Oregon a soft landing compared to targeted, aggressive push in some other states (Utah, Wyoming, for example) — and in our country’s Congress. Whoa. Who’s country? Embodied in this stand-off inheres “property” — partitioned, boundaried, available. “Country” by contrast suggests a depth and an expanse physical and cognitive. Spaces as places. Who uses, owns, extracts, honors, digs, fences, and remembers? With what degree of lasting, of sacred?

Rock art is part of the land, of the stone, the earth, indeed, the country. The indigenous marked places and boundless spaces. Rock art, Indian Land, bearing time, witnessing change, holding close, hardly novel. Lizard abides.

Images from an ancient lake-basin now called Abert in Oregon country: Lake Land…[1] Jonathan Crary. 2002. Spectacle, Attention, Counter-Memory, p.463. In Guy Debord and the Situationist International: Texts and Documents. Tom McDonough, ed. An October book, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. …[2] “Bill considers moving Oregon public land to state control” by Zach Urness, Feb 16 2017 “Fifty-three percent of land in Oregon — 32.6 million acres — is owned by the federal government.”